Commentary

Media X: Eco Unfriendly

I was going to go after the interactive agency digerati again, since the whiny little dirt bags are stamping their feet and bitching about how Cannes Lions should be awarded to them, as well as the ad agency that came up with the winning idea. That's like asking a sculptor to share credit with the guy who sold him the clay. It's so typical of tech arrogance, and such a fat and juicy sitting duck of a column target.

But I'll pass. There's a far more toxic mess to clean up, and it was on display in all its malodorous glory in that circle jerk in the south of France last month. USA Today summed it up nicely when it announced that "eco-marketing" was a "red hot" topic at Cannes.

Look, kids, cause-related marketing is relatively harmless when it's limited to sponsoring the local symphony or beautifying the Little League field. But a capitalist enterprise trying to position itself as a social crusader is an absurd notion under any circumstance. And now, with the country gorging on climate-change correctness, it's become a marketing plague.

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And we, your un-loyal consumers, are sick of it.

You know a marketing and media approach has jumped the shark when an entire cable network is devoted to "Planet Green." When the cover of The Onion teases an inside story with the line "How to Make Millions by Switching to a Green-Colored Logo." When Ad Age runs a "Green Marketing" special report that includes 10 features on the subject, including one with a headline that reads "Car Rental Company Plants Trees."

What is it with you people? Every time the society gloms onto an idea, trend or point of view, you try to make it a selling point. Sure, crafting communications based on cultural truths is a good idea. But overkill based on a strategy that can be summed up in one word -- pandering -- is not.

It never works. And you never learn.

After 9/11, every marketing idea in every communications channel had a firefighter in it. Nobody bought a damn thing because you had a firefighter in your commercial.

In the 1970s, when feminism raged, every ad starred a woman who could "bring home the bacon" but "never let you forget you're a man." I bet not a single female bought a single thing because of those ads. (By the way, when have women ever let us forget we're men?)

And today, nobody will buy a anything because you brag about how your business cards are made from recycled paper. You ain't The Sierra Society and we know it. So cut it out.

Just tell us why the stuff you sell is worth buying, OK? That's not a lot to ask.

And save your energy for serious challenges, like choosing what to wear in Cannes when you're on stage with BBDO accepting a Lion for a campaign in which your digital shop didn't do anything except build a homepage.

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